For those of us who have been running around the health promotion and disease prevention circuit for the last 30 years, as I have been, one of the things we are hearing from you and from the last panel is that in fact the only way to deal with changing behaviour, especially with children, is to look at sequential, integrated, and comprehensive ways of achieving that behavioural change.
I think it's important, and I'm saying this because I really feel this is key. We have known now for the last 25 to 30 years that poverty is the single greatest indicator of health, and yet we have never directed any health promotion and disease prevention into looking at poverty and eradicating poverty and dealing with social issues. We've never done it. To give a tax credit doesn't help, because only if you pay taxes do you get a tax credit. If you're poor and you don't pay taxes and you are in that income group, then you have no access. Good solid infrastructure, as we heard earlier on, is a key piece.
The idea that municipalities need to have a huge role to play in this is also important--and I didn't get to ask that last time--because municipalities have a key role to play, as do school boards. Some of us at the level of the British Columbia Medical Association and the Canadian Medical Association have been trying for the last 20 years to get quality daily physical education in the schools. This is not just phys. ed. for half an hour, where they run around a room or whatever. It's about beginning that sequential and integrated activity and teaching young people about changing their way of life.
I think it's important. I'm interested in the idea, because I firmly believe that the federal government has and must have a responsibility to deal with disease prevention and health promotion in this country. This is a federal role if ever there was one, and I wanted to support you in that.
I want to talk about surveillance, as well. We need to have a federal surveillance model. This is a role the federal government has to embrace. Setting measurable goals comes with having the data and having the breakdown of data across the country. You asked just now why it is that the Maritimes have such a high rate of childhood obesity, and you said you didn't know. We need to know why one region is more prone to certain things than others, and therefore be able to apply the appropriate things.
I want to tell you that I feel it's important that as we look at childhood obesity, we listen to you carefully. I think the issue of poverty, the issue of working within the schools, the issue of working with the municipalities for city planning to be able to have facilities and infrastructure for young people to become more active, and the ability to look at daily physical education and quality education in the schools are key, but advertising is the one I want to ask you about.
I have a bill, which is sitting somewhere at the bottom of the list of bills, on advertising as a federal issue. When our children sit around on a Saturday morning while the parents try to get an extra hour's sleep, they watch TV and see all these wonderful sugary products being promoted. We see that children are so influenced by television and the Internet, etc. It's really key for us to deal with advertising.
Do you have a suggestion for how you see the federal government playing a role in working with the provinces and with the CRTC to deal with this issue?